I'd like to start by telling you how many times I was told I don't look like I just had a baby but I lost count. This started as a piece for the well-intentioned people who tell new mothers they don't look like they just gave birth, but it's actually for everyone. Because the new mother who doesn't look like she just gave birth has never not just given birth. And though you may not be able to tell, it’s all she thinks about. So why are we so quick to comment on her body as if the accomplishment is not giving birth but not looking the part? There are mothers who you tell she doesn’t look like she just had a baby, and there are mothers you don’t tell. Size is usually the determining factor, as it is the first thing you see. Regardless of where we are sorted, we diminish a new mother’s accomplishments to how good they can hide their new reality from us, and that is not only the most invalidating thing you can say to a new mom but speaks volumes about how we value mothers as a society.
We are openly celebrating rapid weight loss, the apparent absence of weight gain and lack of obvious evidence someone just had a baby as if seeing signs of this occurrence would not be worth celebrating. That's a problem that affects all of us, because if our brain sorts new mothers in two categories — those who you can’t tell just had a baby and those you can — what does this say about us? If the first compliment we give to new mothers is an acknowledgment of how well they seem to hide the fact they just pushed a human being out of their body, we are still treating the women in our lives as objects, even in the thick of postpartum. In a world where we are advocating for women’s rights, respect, equal pay, sisterhood and feminism, we still constantly put each other down with micro aggressions, objectification and competition. Yes, most people who told me this were women.
When "you don't look like you just had a baby" started sounding like nails on a chalkboard, I sat with it for a while trying to understand why it was so triggering to hear. The part that angered me the most is that I found myself thanking people who said that to me even though it did not feel like a compliment and left me feeling so invisible. It's the "I don't see colour" of postpartum; I know you're just trying to be nice and tell me you're on my team, but you're actually being invalidating, ignorant and are erasing a major part of my experience and existence. Is someone who looks like a struggling new mother so uncomfortable for one to see they'll congratulate the women who don't look like they are? You're basically telling us how great we are for keeping it together and looking put-together in public, which affirms that there is no safe place for us to show our struggle, share our grief, wear our exhaustion instead of makeup and let loose skin hang rather than tucking it behind high-waisted leggings. There is no celebration for that. You would never tell a new mom that she very obviously looks like she just had a baby. But we say the opposite all the time.
There's the angle of deniability that is quite interesting. Pointing out the absence of evidence that a woman just gave birth and handing it to her like a gold medal reminds me of how little space there is in society for moms. Have we become so materialistic and fake as a species we cannot tolerate signs of our humanness? Are we in denial that birth happens all the time and many women around us are growing humans or healing from having birthed them? The second you give birth you will be celebrated for not giving away signs that you did, for looking like you could go back to work, back to running, back to having sex, back to your pre-pregnancy clothes and back to a body size society values. We leave out the moms who physically present bigger but accomplished the same thing as thin moms. We don’t celebrate them or compliment them the way we do thin moms, even though their capacity to mother, their birth, their skills, their experience, their existence and their struggles are the same, just as important and worth celebrating.
Have we forgotten how to love? Have we become so frozen in the presence of vulnerability? The gentleness, care and compassion we should show new mothers might be so uncomfortable for some of us to put in practice we find ourselves openly celebrating women who look like they don't need it. Thank God you made yourself look like you did not just have a baby, I would have had to be exposed to your fragility, ask about your experience, see how you're doing, not be able to relate to any of it and sit with the discomfort of not knowing how to hold space for someone who just went through something so big because I was never shown how to. It would make me uncomfortable to see your truth because my vulnerability was never encouraged, valued or appreciated. I had to hide the realness of my human experience and emotions my entire life, so your very obvious humanness is not something I’m capable to handle. Thank you for coming here looking like you did before you gave birth so my nervous system can pretend that you didn’t and we can just not talk about it, even though you probably need to talk about it.
"You don't look like you just had a baby," is not about the new mom. It's a saying of self-congratulations. Look at how kind and considerate I am making this new mom feel good in her skin by telling her she doesn't look like a new mom. I'm so pro-women I tell new moms their bodies haven't changed at all. It's about the compliment-giver feeling like a good person, but not actually being a good friend. Because you know who can tell she just had a baby? This mom does. It's all she thinks about and feels since it happened. It's all she is focused on healing, recovering from, unpacking and remembering. Her entire identity has changed, not just because she’s a mother now, but because the cells in her body have changed. She is physiologically a new person. Her entire life changed in a matter of hours, and we all know how much we humans struggle with change. It was probably the biggest moment of her life, and we tell her we can’t even see it. To be… kind? Body positive? Friendly? Telling her she doesn't look like she just gave birth is a bad attempt at a compliment that minimizes this mother's entire experience and new identity to the size of her waist and the darkness of her under-eye. What are we doing?
I got so irritated by this comment I started answering the only way that felt right. If someone said: "Wow! You don't even look like you just gave birth." I'd reply: "You should see my vagina." Obviously I did just give birth and you know this. Obviously my appearance will not directly show that I just gave birth because my daughter didn't come out of my face. While you're talking to me about how I look like birth did not happen from me, my vulva is extremely swollen, there are stitches in my perineum, a thick pad is absorbing pieces of uterine tissue, blood, mucus and other fluids from my vagina. My nipples are leaking in big bamboo sheets I stuffed in my bra. My pelvic girdle feels like it's loose and missing screws in all the wrong places grinding painfully with every step. My abdominal wall is ripped down the middle and I lost so much of my core strength I can barely get up from bed without help. I'm now getting bright, red cherry beauty marks all over my body. I pee myself when I sneeze and have minor PTSD when I push to go the bathroom. I have burst blood vessels, scars, marks and bruises. So I guess I'm glad this isn't happening in my face because it would be very uncomfortable for you to see and as mothers, it seems like our main job is not making people uncomfortable. It would be so obvious I just gave birth if you could see my vagina you couldn't hide that truth with the most expensive concealer and a Skims bodysuit. But lucky for you, it's all hidden and it's something I will only let out and sit with in the silence of my bathroom and try to figure out alone. I'll clean, wipe, wash, disinfect, massage, put ointments, oils, trim stitches and do whatever I need without anyone ever knowing. I'll do physiotherapy that requires having more strangers’ fingers inside my body and never talk about how uncomfortable that makes me. I’ll squint the pain away when I sit down. I'll sigh under my breath when walking becomes too hard. I'll use both arms and break my back carrying the carseat to make up for my broken core and make it look effortless. I'll leak through shirts behind closed doors. I will bleed in the privacy of my home. I'll cry in the shower as I touch swollen body parts that don't feel like mine. I'll hide the long leg hair I haven't had the energy to shave. I’ll wear tight clothes in public that sort me in the ‘‘can’t even tell’’ category and keep the stained, loose, unattractive-but-comfortable sweats within the confines of my house. I'll keep my skin bare and my hormonal breakouts visible only for my husband. I’ll let the fatigue and worry show on my face only when I look in the mirror. I'll let my greasy hair down when no one's around. I'll make sure that, for your sake and comfort, I only show signs of my motherness when I'm alone. I'll only let it be evident I just had a baby when I'm in my home. I'll do whatever I can to not make it obvious I just gave birth so that you get to tell me I look like I didn't have a baby, and feel like you're a good person for making me feel so great about my postpartum body.